Category Archives: Craft on tap

This week the Reinheitsgebot turns 500 years old. If you’ve ever been on ANY brewery tour, the Reinheistsgebot always comes up but most of us refer to it as the German Beer Purity Law. By this law, beer legally could be made only with 4 ingredients: Water, Barley and Hops (Yeast would be added later once it was understood). Back then, beer was actually safer to drink than water (maybe still is). In fact, way back around 1080 an Abbot by the name of Arnold of Soissons saved many would-be-plague victims by having them drink the beer he made instead of water (the water used for the beer would be boiled and the harmful pathogens would be killed) as a result many people that followed his instructions survived and he would later become Saint Arnold- patron saint of hop pickers and brewers (I also learned on a tour in Belgium that his statue is in every brewery in the country). Several years later in 1516, to make sure beer remained safe the Reinheitsgebot was adopted and any brewer that violated the purity law would be punished by being arrested and their beer confiscated and destroyed.

Today many of your favorite beers are made following this law. Pilsners, lagers, stouts, porters, bocks, ambers, IPAs, ect all use water, barley, hops and yeast. However, in this day and age innovation is the name of the game and you can only do so much with base grains and hop varieties. So this Saturday when this law becomes 500 years old, by all means have a glass of beer (most German beers strictly follow the Reinheitsgebot and are stellar) but also if you want to raise the devils horns and make Judas Priest proud and “Break the law” here’s a few to check out: (READ MORE)

So this year, my wife and I began our Great American Beer Festival visit much earlier than expected and did a double-header thanks to a last minute message from one of my friends getting rid of a pair of tickets for the earlier member’s session. We were hesitant at first just because we anticipated doing a lot of much-needed cleaning errands prior to going to our evening session, but a simple push in the right direction got us to decide to do it. We rapidly made our way home to get dressed, make arrangements for our pup to be taken out and fed, and we quickly hopped the bus to go to the session, which was already an or so hour in progress. The tasters have changed since the last time I did a member’s session in 2013. Instead of the glass cylinder shooter style glasses, we were given mini tulip glasses, which made me very happy, as tulips are my favorite style of glassware. (READ MORE)

Summer officially has passed and now Autumn is upon us. While it’ll be pretty warm (still in the 90s this weekend here), you may have noticed that Autumn has already began in the beer sections. Breweries tend to like to start things a month or two early, so there’s probably a chance that you’ve had your first Marzen/Oktoberfest or Pumpkin ale already. Since Oktoberfest festivities and this weekend’s Great American Beer Festival has put me into beer nerd mood, I’m putting a few articles together for “Beer Week” and like I try to do every season, I’ll pick a fresh crop of seasonal beers and briefly describe them to make the ultimate seasonal 6-pack (although some come in bombers). As before, the rules remain the same for this column:

The beers have been tasted (there’s so much beer, so little time/body limitations to try them all…plus it’d be bullshit to rattle off beers that haven’t been tried first). So in other words “duh!”

The beers can be found in stores (there’s plenty of breweries that are “on-tap only” that I’m fiercely loyal to, but unless you live near us, this list won’t help you out much, plus it isn’t designed to provoke a “I have better places to drink than you” pissing contest), so these can hopefully be found in your local stores as well.

The beer is distributed to Colorado. That’s where I’m located currently. This stipulation also obviously mirrors stipulation number 1. There’s plenty that I tried at the Great American Beer Festival and wish that came this way (I’m looking at you 3 Floyds, Sun King, Cigar City, Jester King, Heavy Seas and Brooklyn Brewery!!) Needless to say, I’m sure there are possibly some blasphemous omissions from the following lists, but there’s also a very good chance that it hasn’t been tried or made available out here. Plus you can sound off below in the comments!

Finally to keep it fresh each time: No repeats. I’ve done this particular column for 2 years. It’ll get boring if I just keep repeating past picks. Past picks are always a very good choice, plus more choices aren’t bad either. Check out some of the previous entries in the Craft On Tap link at the top of this page (I’ll wait)!

Summer is here….at least some of it is still happening. With cooler weather coming in a few weeks and pumpkin ales already filling the shelves (drinking some Pumpkick as I type this), you may be at the point of quickly arranging some end-of-summer BBQs and outings. While I meant to do this list 3 months ago, there’s still plenty of time to try my picks for this summer (plus , this year I remembered to do a summer article!!).

While this is my first time to remember to do a summer edition of this recurring article, the rules remain the same as with my prior entries:

The beers have been tasted (there’s so much beer, so little time/body limitations to try them all…plus it’d be bullshit to rattle off beers that haven’t been tried first). So in other words “duh!”

The beers can be found in stores (there’s plenty of breweries that are “on-tap only” that I’m fiercely loyal to, but unless you live near me, this list won’t help you out much, plus it isn’t designed to provoke a “I have better places to drink than you” pissing contest), so these can hopefully be found in your local stores as well.

The beer is distributed to Colorado. That’s where I’m located currently. This stipulation also obviously mirrors stipulation number 1. There’s plenty that I tried at the Great American Beer Festival and wish that came this way (I’m looking at you 3 Floyds, Sun King, Cigar City, Jester King, Heavy Seas and Brooklyn Brewery!!) Needless to say, I’m sure there are possibly some blasphemous omissions from the following lists, but there’s also a very good chance that it hasn’t been tried or made available out here. Plus you can sound off below in the comments if I snub your favorite beer!

No repeats. I’ve done this particular column for 2 years. It’ll get boring if I just keep repeating past picks. Past picks are always a very good choice, plus more choices isn’t bad either. Check out some of the previous entries in the Craft On Tap link at the top of this page (I’ll wait)!

As winter’s flailing corpse gives way to seedlings and sprouts, it’s time to rotate the dark winter warmers and imperial stouts from the fridge out for some lighter beers all the while keeping some of the slightly darker ales for those chilly spring nights.

With springtime, we start to see some of the nicer weather days, the parks look a bit greener, you can go hiking with your friends without secretly wondering which ones you’d be forced to eat if there’s an avalanche that strands you, the restaurant patio seating becomes more tempting and you can go on a nice bike ride from time to time. In addition you may get one or two days where you have to still bundle up and wipe snow from your car. Spring is a bit of a identity crisis period between winter and summer and when it comes to beer you will see a mix of the lighter summer-esque offerings while the dark stouts of winter still remains tempting.

While this is my first time to remember to do a spring edition, the rules remain the same as with my prior entries: (READ MORE)

Whether you like it or not, Autumn is here once again. While it may be a few more weeks before the leaves change colors and the air grows colder, if you visit your local beer store you’ll probably notice that the pumpkin beers are already starting to take up some prime real estate in the coolers and on a few tap walls as well. While I’m more of a fan of sunshine, flip-flops and nice biking weather, Autumn usually heralds the arrival of some of my favorite beers. In addition, being somewhat spoiled by living in Denver, One of America’s biggest beer cities, Autumn also brings the Great American Beer Festival (aka my personal “SuperBowl”). So it’s usually this time of year that my love for beer becomes somewhat annoying to my non-beer drinking friends as I gush about various breweries, beers, and tap takeovers leading up to the event.

I decided that since Autumn is once again upon us, that it’s time to do another Craft on Tap entry (apologies for not doing one for Spring/Summer, I was dealing with job things). I didn’t really get any correspondents this time around but maybe I’ll have a few for my Winter installment. To make this entry interesting I’ve added a new rule to this series: Your picks cannot be repeated if they showed up on a previous year’s picks that you have made. This keeps it fresh and more challenging. Here’s last year’s picks. So call this “Ultimate Autumn Six-Pack Vol. II” if you will. If you need a refresher here’s the other rules for this series:

The beers have been tasted (there’s so much beer, so little time/body limitations to try them all…plus it’d be bullshit to rattle off beers that haven’t been tried first). So in other words “duh!”

The beers can be found in stores (there’s plenty of breweries that are “on-tap only” that I’m fiercely loyal to, but unless you live near us, this list won’t help you out much, plus it isn’t designed to provoke a “I have better places to drink than you” pissing contest), so these can hopefully be found in your local stores as well.

The beer is distributed to Colorado. That’s where I’m located currently. This stipulation also obviously mirrors stipulation number 1. There’s plenty that I tried at the Great American Beer Festival and wish that came this way (I’m looking at you 3 Floyds, Sun King, Cigar City, Jester King, Heavy Seas and Brooklyn Brewery!!) Needless to say, I’m sure there are possibly some blasphemous omissions from the following lists, but there’s also a very good chance that it hasn’t been tried or made available out here. Plus you can sound off below in the comments!

Hello everyone, after taking a bit of a hiatus from updating this site I wanted to return with a brand-new recurring column: Craft on Tap. This will be examining another passion of mine: Craft Beer!! While this is still very much a pop culture blog mainly focusing on movies, comics, TV shows and such, I would like to argue that craft brewing is very much a part of pop culture. Like comics and movies, the craft beer scene has spawned a rapidly growing army of beer “geeks” (aka people that are fiercely loyal to the smaller craft breweries). Therefore, I think it’s only fitting to implement craft beer into this blog.

As autumn officially kicks in, most of us are already feeling the change in weather as the days grow shorter and the air turns colder. With this change in seasons, it’s also a time that the lighter beers of summer are swapped out for darker ales. With so many beers to choose from ranging from nut brown ales to an endless list of pumpkin ales, it can be quite intimidating to decide what beers to give a try during the next few months. So, to possibly guide you in a beer-Jedi-sort-of-way, I’ve compiled a list to make a “custom 6 pack” of Autumn beers (unlike most six-packs this will list a few bombers as well) To give the list a little diversity, I got some fellow friends and craft beer aficionados to compile their own custom autumn beer 6-pack lists as well (some duplicates exist but that just means we’re on the same wave-length). Of course, I am a strong believer in supporting your local craft brewery, so above all, this should definitely be a companion to drinking the local stuff.

For these lists, there’s 3 key stipulations/things to disclose about our selection process:

The beers have been tasted (there’s so much beer, so little time/body limitations to try them all…plus it’d be bullshit to rattle off beers that we didn’t try first). So in other words “duh!”

The beers can be found in stores (there’s plenty of breweries that are “on-tap only” that I’m fiercely loyal to, but unless you live near us, this list won’t help you out much, plus it isn’t designed to provoke a “I have better places to drink than you” pissing contest), so these can hopefully be found in your local stores as well.

The beer is distributed to Colorado. That’s where the three of us are located currently. This stipulation also obviously mirrors stipulation number 1. There’s plenty that I tried at the Great American Beer Festival and wish that came this way (I’m looking at you 3 Floyds, Sun King, Cigar City, Jester King, Heavy Seas and Brooklyn Brewery!!) Needless to say, I’m sure there are possibly some blasphemous omissions from the following lists, but there’s also a very good chance that it hasn’t been tried or made available out here. Plus you can sound off below in the comments!